Tag Archives: elections

You know a while back there was a big brouhaha about the fact that Obamacare required that children be allowed to stay on their parents insurance until they were 26. Now there were many multiple valid claims about this–that it was unconstitutional government use of power, that it wastes money, that it would cause a death spiral of insurance coverage, that it was an entitlement giveaway to just buy votes. All accurate and valid objections of idiotic action by the government. But of all the objections the one that wasn’t really that valid was that 26 year olds are adults. Seriously? I know this is legally a fact, like the idea that corporations are individuals, a pleasant legal fiction that has no relationship to reality. But unlike the legal fiction of corporate personhood which needs to be defended if you want society to properly function, this idea that you legally are an adult when you turn 18 needs to eliminated.

I mean have you met most people in their early 20’s? It would be hard to find a group less like adults if you tried.

And before you accuse me of having a low opinion of 20 somethings…just remember what the left thinks of them.

So let’s deal in reality a little more and raise the age of full rights as an adult to at least 26 (if not 30, because if your brain only stops developing at 26, logically you might want to have a few years using that brain and get used to it before being thrown into the deep end of the pool).

Does this mean that I want people living with their parents until they’re 30? No. Hell no. (Although that does appear to be the goal of Democrats based on the last few years of their economic planning). But that just because you get to move out doesn’t mean you you’re ready for everything. Think about it, it’s silly to say, ‘oh you’re 18 and just moved out, here is a long list of things we didn’t trust you with last month and in addition to trying to figure out how to support yourself, we’re going to give you all these other options and responsibilities you have no experience how to deal with Yes we need to give people at 18 or 21 the legal right to sign contracts so they can sign a lease and get out of their parents immediate circle and learn to live on their own, but we don’t need shove everything on them all at once before they’re prepared for it.

Further this needs to be done because of the changing nature of education. Whether the state led Common Core standards (as opposed to the federal Race to the Top program which very ignorant pundits call Common Core, because there are some very ignorant pundits who probably could have used a more standards based reading curriculum out there) succeed or not in becoming standard practice, the fact is that the day is coming where you will see consistent standards across the board in this nation. And once you have that you will see more and more students held back. And this is a good thing; it is one of the dumbest things in world to think that all six year olds are at the same level on the same day. And holding back students a year (and in some cases two or three) will help a lot of students actually succeed where before they would have failed their entire time in school. But this will also mean that you will see more people graduating high school at 19 and 20 (and maybe even a few at 21). Do you really want someone voting who hasn’t even had a government course yet (and let’s think about how little is actually covered in a high school government class…if you don’t even have that, I certainly don’t think you should be deciding what to do with my tax money). And even more to the point as more students succeed in elementary and secondary education because of these standards holding them back making sure they actually get the information in the first place, you will see more and more students getting through trade schools, and their A.A.’s and B.A.’s, (which will be great for the economy)…but will also mean that people will likely be in the bubble of undergrad education for even long periods of their life (and the last thing we need is those people voting)…which will in turn mean they will get an even later start in life.

Let’s just admit that society is changing and change our attitude toward the legal concept of adulthood to match.

And when you think about this there are so many wonderful advantages to this.

What would I include in this?

Well, first, we need to raise the voting age. It should be raised to 30, but I’ll take 26. Yes you can make the argument that some 18 year olds are mature enough to vote, but guess what, if they’re mature enough to vote then they’re mature enough to understand that there are anywhere from 2 to 5 of their fellow 18 year olds who are not mature enough to vote and they’ll probably be more thankful to not have 5 idiots cancelling out their vote. Now some will say that we lowered it to 18 because if you’re old enough to serve in the military then you’re old enough to vote…forgetting that this was an argument about the draft (a program that will never be instituted again because the military prefers an all volunteer force and modern technology has made it possible to fight a war without having to draft). Trust me if we ever get into another war the magnitude of which we have to call a draft, whether 18 year olds can vote or not will be the very least of your worries. And you know what I’m more than willing to put in some exception for those who wish to serve their nation having the right to vote earlier, hell I’m even willing to put in some kind of rules, like in the description in Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, we will find you something to do if you don’t meet the traditional physical needs of the military if voting before 30 means that much to you (if you’re willing to give 4+ years of your life to your nation, we’ll find you something to do and give you the vote). But back to voting, before I digress too much, anyone who has studied exit polls knows that without the 18-29 voting block you will get much, much more rational, sane and intelligent representatives.

But it just doesn’t end there.

Libertarians, what if we raised the age that one could take drugs from 21 to 26 and imposed very heavy punishments to those who sold to anyone under that age. If you made that argument you would be able to deal with almost all the people who very rationally argue “what about the kids” and you would be able to push much more effectively on your legalization arguments (which would in turn reduce much of the waste and corruption that comes from the war on drugs). No one would really care what someone in their late 20’s or older puts in themselves (so long as they do it in the privacy of their own home). But please remember this does need to come with near Draconian measures to against those who can’t keep it in private and those who would provide such substance to anyone under 26…think about it Libertarians, it’s a near perfect silver bullet for one of your favorite issues.

And social conservatives, you should also embrace this? Why, because I think the existence of Girls Gone Wild and other such videos (not to mention nearly every other week hearing about a woman in this job or that being fired for having done porn briefly in college despite any of her current rational and mature behavior) proves that 18 year olds might not be the best age to allow men and women to decide when to get into this industry. I’m not getting into the argument here of whether or not there are people who do enjoy being in this industry and can do it without being psychologically scarred…all I’m going to say is that I think we can all agree an 18 year old isn’t qualified to make that important a choice that will haunt them for the rest of their life. (Liberal feminists you should also be on board with this).

And liberals you should also be on board with this as it will require parents to be financially responsible for their children longer, which you think is a good thing.

And economic conservatives, before you read that last sentence and throw a hissy fit, let’s also say that you can’t get ANY welfare benefits until you are fully adult, you’re the responsibility of your parents until then. And consider how many liberal parents will suddenly start teaching some self control to their children if they know at 16 they’ll be responsible for them (and any spawn they have) for another 10 years not 2. Now think of the dropping welfare roles that could follow. So conservatives, keep calm, reread the last paragraph and use it convince your liberal friends.

Really there is no group that shouldn’t be in support of this. Except maybe demagogues who only stay in power because of easily fooled adolescents. Yeah Barry I mean you.

Rather than starting with something heavy like “read more” (and trust me that one’s coming). I would like to focus on something very small that makes a huge difference.
And that thing is what you wear.

Now if you’re the kind of person who is reading blogs on how Republicans can win elections, odds are you have a T-shirt or two that has a political message. But how often do you actually wear it?

Probably not. You probably wear it around the house or when you’re with close friends…but I get it, why wear something that might cause friction when you don’t have to.

But you see here is the problem–right, wrong, or indifferent wearing political material in public has very relevant consequences. It allows people to identify those with similar beliefs, which in turn allows people to know about opportunities. It allows for them to know that they aren’t alone and that they maybe should get involved or at least vote (if you’re feel alone in your beliefs you may feel inclined to just stay home because what difference will your vote make? Especially in the primaries). And let’s face it, those middle voters who don’t seem to make up their minds until the very second they step into the election booth, while I loathe their inability to make a decision based on anything but stupid things like name recognition or the fact that ‘people like me relate to him.’* Liberals have us beat on this. They do. They put the faces of their god-kings on everything they can at every chance. And this does affect people in the middle. They look at one sign that drapes themselves in the faces of their scum covered nominees…and they see us, where a Republican shirt is few and far between…if the Left is so willing to put the faces and names of philanderers and murderers on just about everything they own, including what they wear…and with the exception of staffers for a campaign you really don’t see that on the right. Why? For the simple mind of your average independent/moderate voter** a line of thought never occurs that we on the Right don’t revere our elected officials as the second-coming versus the Left which has to deify their leaders might have some difference in how much we wear their names. They just know one side is really hyped and the other isn’t. And to the moderate mind this means they should be excited about the one that other people are excited about.

And before you call my cynical view of people totally baseless, let me ask one question: How is anything I’m suggesting any different than the psychology behind any ad firm trying to generate buzz about a product by handing out free T-shirts with the product name. Seeing the name generates interest. Be it sales or votes. It works. It’s that simple. Again it doesn’t matter if it’s right, wrong or indifferent. It just is how things work.

So what does this mean?

It means that if you want to start doing those little small things that will win the House, the Senate and build the groundswell that will give us all of Congress and the White House for the first time since Eisenhower (for the first time since Coolidge if we’re talking about conservatives instead of merely Republicans), well, then, you have to wear your Republican gear everywhere.

Everywhere.

(Okay maybe not work, because nobody likes the jackass who makes everything about politics in the break room… …before you ask, no I’m not that guy.)

Admit it, you want a shirt that references the enumerated powers of the Constitution.

When you go out there better be something very prominently conservative on you. I don’t care if it’s for a candidate, for the party or just something conservative. (Okay I have to put this up because I would be crazy if I didn’t…the Conservative New Ager Store and the Damn Straight Politics Store
…but we all know that there are more than enough conservative T-shirt producers out there if you don’t like those). I particularly recommend candidate shirts because it gets the candidate’s name out there and allows you to contribute to the coffers of the candidate at the same time, so two things in one.

I know a lot of you will dislike this because it’s almost an invitation for very annoying liberals to harass you and get into political arguments when you’re just trying to go out and buy a gallon of milk.

But ask yourself, if I’m right and this can sometimes help sway a moderate voter (as everything we all know about advertising tells us) then isn’t a little annoyance in the short term worth it to get the liberals out of power?

*Yes why should who has better economic plans or who won’t end up bankrupting this whole place leaving a wasteland for your grandchildren to try to rebuild…let’s ask the important questions like ‘Who would I rather have a beer with?” The easiest way to win an election would be to ban morons from voting but as that’s not going to happen anytime soon…we have to play the game that exists not the game we should be playing in a just and intelligent world.
**I don’t want to hear it. Independents and moderates are the worst of the worst. For all their idiocy and in many cases evil Libertarians and Liberals at least stand for something. What do you guys stand for? The right to go through life utterly clueless of everything around you but still thinking you have some right to decide how the a government you pay attention to only once every two years for maybe 2 days affects all of us. Also it should be clear that I’m not speaking to moderates. I don’t particularly care if anyone thinks I’m alienating some with this…trust me I’m not. Moderates are too busy looking up pop culture facts to be reading a hyper-dense political blog like this.

We need to get our priorities and our facts in order if we’re going to move forward.

A friend of mine, a person whose opinions I deeply respect, said to me “you know it’s really sad that McCain got more votes than Romney.” And this struck me as very odd, because, if you go and look up the actual totals you’ll see that Romney (60.933 million votes) got more votes than McCain (59.948 million)…about a million more for any liberals who may be reading this (I know you guys have problems with basic math, so I’m just trying to help).

So yes it would have been sad if a conservative like Romney had done worse than a RINO sack of shit like McCain among Republican voters, but it simply isn’t the case. What is sad, however, is that this vicious lie has been repeated so many times that even intelligent people have begun to believe it (like McCain’s lies about Romney being liberal, or most of what Barry has done to further the philosophy of the Big Lie).

And most responsible for this is a certain group of pundits who seem dedicated to this lie that Romney did worse and the secondary lies that go on to explain why Romney got fewer votes–that we lost because we didn’t focus more on social issues, that we have to become isolationists, that we need to have versions of welfare and cronyism of our own, that the government needs more power in certain sectors–you know the Santorum platform…oh, wait it’s all those Ricky supporting dipshits who are the ones who are primarily behind this lie. It is the same reason that these pundits need to latch onto the minutiae of actual conservatives and scream bloody murder over small problems, but will conveniently ignore the multiple and serious problems of their new Tea Party darlings…not because they’re doing this out of deep conviction, but out of fear. The fear that if an economic conservative actually wins at this point then their insane social “conservatism” will be discarded by the whole of the nation. Fear that at this point if a real conservative wins in an environment that they can do something then their meal ticket of peddling anger will dry up. They’re afraid of the truth that economic and foreign policy conservatives can win, then all the nutty ideas proposed by these pundits will fall by the way side.

But why am I ranting about this? I’m ranting about this because this is a very illuminating piece of the conservative movement’s larger problem: We need to look at what does and doesn’t work in elections for Republicans. And this is something we haven’t done in quite some time.

Even the postmortem of the election by the RNC Party didn’t really get to the heart of what the actual message needs to be. So let’s look at the history of the Republican Party and what candidate victories actually are.

The history goes something like this: Republicans don’t tend to do well. Just accept that. At least conservatives don’t do well compared to liberals on the whole. We don’t do well getting people out, we don’t tend to inspire. This is not because we have bad messaging, this is not because we have bad candidates, this is because all we have to offer is a lot of what people don’t want to buy. We offer responsibility. We offer hard work. We offer gains through effort, merit, work and trial of blood, sweat and tears. We offer real gains, but real gains aren’t easy compared to Democrats and progressives just promising the world. ‘We’ll take it from the rich and give it to you, yes you.’ To hell if it will actually work, it’s such a nice dream that people just want to hear it over and over and over again.

But let’s look at the actual cases.

Here are the numbers.

Here we have the elections, winners, the number of people who voted for both parties, the percentage of the vote and voter turnout. But raw numbers like this are kind of meaningless. And we have to consider all three, because a candidate who loses with a high turnout rate might actually have been a better candidate than a candidate who won with a low turnout rate. Think of it this way: you have two salesmen. One salesman only sells 25 items to a group of 100 people, another salesman sells 30 items to a group of 200 people. Now you might want to say that the salesman who sold 30 items is a better salesman–but he’s not because he only got 15% of the group that he was talking to, the other salesman got 25% of the people he was talking to. So if we just like a percentage of the votes we’re just looking at the 30 and 25– but if we look at the percentage of the vote in context of the voter turnout it begins to look a little different.

And the numbers go like this from the Republicans who got the largest share of the general population.

Now who got a larger portion of the population than Romney to come out? Obviously not most Republicans…but let’s look at the specific instances…You have W.’s 2nd run, Reagan’s 2nd, Eisenhower’s 2nd and Nixon’s first run against Kennedy. Now while not a firm rule, the fact is that the prestige of being president or being Vice President does help (and you see this with Democratic candidates as well). That leaves Wendell Wilkie (who was running against FDR’s third term, so some of the outrage against the idea of a President running for a third time might be somewhat to blame), and Eisenhower’s 1st run. Now with Eisenhower, you have something almost better than being President, you have the title Supreme Allied Commander. Also you just have to generally exclude Eisenhower’s runs and Nixon’s first run as they weren’t running so much on a platform of policies, but on the name Eisenhower.

Now you can disagree with my logic of excluding some or all of these, but you have to admit that Romney got a larger portion of the nation to come out and vote for him than most Republicans.

So not only did Romney get a larger number of votes than McCain, a larger share of the population than McCain,

This man knew what he was doing. It wasn’t perfect in all ways and he was up against an opponent who promised the world and cheated to get what he couldn’t get through giveaways…but Romney provides us the model for the kind of candidate we need.

and a larger share of the population than most Republicans throughout recent history, let’s not say Romney failed because let’s look at the fact he beat out Reagan’s first run for presidency. Romney got a larger share of the population to vote for him than Reagan did. Romney did better than Reagan did in 1980. Think about that. Also think about the fact that Reagan almost didn’t win the election in 1980. In 1980 there was a third-party challenger who took away a lot of votes from Carter, and that’s why Reagan won, not because Carter was such a bad president—no the American public is kind of stupid in that respect, they won’t even vote out a terrible person??—no it’s that a challenger came in and stole some of the Democratic Party votes. Just as Republicans won in 2000 because Ralph Nader came in and stole votes from Gore, just as Bush lost in ‘92 because Ross Perot came in and stole votes. The sad fact is that in ’80, ’92, and 2000 it wasn’t so much because people liked the winner so much it’s because the incumbent had a challenger siphoning off some of their votes. And that’s a sad fact, had there not been a challenger, in 1980 we would’ve been stuck with two terms of Carter. It’s not an idea per se that people are voting for, sometimes it’s just to feel that they can be different. (It doesn’t appear that (the perpetually appearing to be stoned) Gary Johnson siphoned off enough votes to make a difference, but who knows how many people he convinced to at least stay home, so thanks Gary go fuck yourself.)

So I don’t want to hear that Rodney was a terrible candidate because Romney pulled out people in a way that no other Republican in recent memory seems to be able to do. And one of the reasons he was able to do this was because Romney didn’t really focus on social issues. Yes he said he was personally socially conservative but in no way, shape, or form did he ever give the impression that he was going to legislate on that. Notice that he was not going to stand in the way of law. He did not feel it was the government’s responsibility, especially the federal government’s responsibility, to change and dictate morality in laws. Romney got people out because he talked about the only two issues that are important: the economy and foreign-policy. Liberty here and liberty abroad.

Now yes you can claim that social issues did come up in the form of idiots like Todd Akin (the man should’ve taken Karl Rove’s advice and shot himself)– but that, an issue with social conservatism, if anything, lost Romney votes. Social conservatism and those who preach it are the worst enemies of economic liberty and international peace, not its greatest defenders (they’re also their own worst enemies because good economic policy will create the institutions in society that social conservatives love…and they’ll do it without forcing it via law)

‘But, but, I was told by a single idiotic pundit (who shall remain nameless) that had only the Christian voters come out Romney would’ve won. It’s the fact the evangelicals stayed home, the conservative evangelical voters stayed home and Romney lost. Actually if you look at the breakdown that’s not quite accurate. And in fact most of the groups dipshit pundits want to point to as having been driven off by Romney, actually did better with those groups. All these claims that Romney was a RINO (made only by people too illiterate to actually read his record) or that we needed a more socially conservative candidate are based on the myth, no, not myth, bald face lie, that conservatives stayed home and didn’t vote for Romney. I can’t find any actual evidence that can substantiate the claim that the social conservatives did not turn out for Romney. So anyone who talks about conservatives staying home, and not turning out and not getting out the vote is full of crap. Now granted we may not have been able to make as many moderates come out, but the fact of the matter is, let’s be honest here, Obama was just manufacturing votes in a lot of the swing states. In addition Romney’s grand get out the vote program ORCA seems to have crashed (a little too conveniently on Election Day) which hurt in getting out those otherwise moderate voters who leaned towards Romney (but a lot of these problems seemed to have been resolved through RNC efforts in the 2013 governor elections). The long and short of it is that no one should ever be claiming this bullshit lie that the psychotic populist pundits want to keep proposing that Romney, couldn’t get voters out. He did. People should not be buying this lie that because he wasn’t a social conservative we lost. That is not the case.

We lost for a few other reasons. As I’ve stated before it wasn’t because social conservatives hurt us…so whining to crazy social conservatives or lunatic libertarians is not the answer. The answer is to get another economic conservative like Romney, and do better on the ground game. Do better on getting people out…and this is not entirely the responsibility of the candidate. We cannot be the party of individualists but think that the party on high is the one responsible for winning this thing. We have to be better at being a grassroots party…and thus I am going to start (hopefully weekly, but you know how I get) suggestions that every single conservative should do to help get conservatives into every level of government to help shrink the size of said government.

Okay so several times I have asked what the phrase “Judeo-Christian Values” means and how it is different from the values of other beliefs and religions. I haven’t received many good answers. Yes there are certainly differences between them in the nature of God or in the rituals and the structure of the community…but in terms of values there is little difference…everyone regards the soul as divine in some way* and proper understanding of any of these religions lends one to a virtue based ethics in line with the Classical Realism of Aristotle and Plato. In fact, when you look at most religions there are some pretty strong parallels in all the virtues—some may be more detailed than others in some areas and less in others, but they seem to focus on the same general virtues.

Granted there is not a point for point comparison between the virtues that I am showing here, and there are shades of difference and meaning, often caused more by culture and period of time they were written in, but in terms of broad swaths, every religion believes in the same general set of virtues. Also this chart could be much more inclusive of a variety of religions and still hold true…but I think you get the point.

So the term Judeo-Christian values, which supposedly would mean the virtues and ethics this group holds to be good and right and true is just the same as the virtues of every other religion, then it’s not that meaningful a phrase. Yes there are differences between Judeo-Christian beliefs and other religions, but none of these differences have anything to do with the political context of how the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” is used.

The phrase is meant to draw a contrast between spiritual/religious values and those of the secular, progressive, fascist, fanatical sections of society that actually don’t share either a belief in virtue based ethics or have some very radically different values.

So why is this an important point to bring up?

Well because it makes a pretty clear distinction between those who follow Judeo-Christianity and everyone else. Including people of lots of different faiths who were not intended to be alienated. Is this relevant?

Well first off I think it’s a fair statement that the term Judeo-Christian values is primarily used by conservatives. Second I would assume we want to win. We lost the last election by 3.9% points. A 3% shift of the vote would have given Romney the popular and Electoral College vote and about 6 Senate seats (i.e., complete Republican control). So it then becomes a question, is there 3% of the electorate who is religious and spiritual, not already voting Republican, that is not in the Judeo-Christian bracket?

Let’s look at the polls.

Pew does a major poll every year looking at the trends in religion in America. It’s a sample of 17,000 people so it’s fairly accurate as polls go.

So of the “other” religion we have 6% of the nation and of the “nothing in particular” group we have 13.9% of the population. Together they make 19.9% of the population. Common sense alone says that if you have 20% of the country, two-thirds of whom are voting against your party, then maybe if you stopped alienating them with an us vs. them term (or at least picked a new term) you could pick up a few…maybe?

So let’s look at the 19.9% a little more closely. Okay so we can discount about 1% of the “other” group as they are the “religion of peace” and their fairly fascist beliefs are moderately antithetical to conservative principles and the values/ethics being promoted. So we’re down to 18.9% up for grabs.

Now the let’s look at how the remaining 5% of the “Other” and the 13.9% of “nothing in particular.” Now a flaw of this report is that they lump the ““nothing in particular” in with Atheists and Agnostics under the heading of Unaffiliated (but for the purpose of this let’s just assume the numbers are about the same throughout all the unaffiliated, it doesn’t make a terribly large difference anyway). From the data we can see that only about 57% of the Other group and 69% of the unaffiliated are voting for Democrats (trust me the math works). So give or take (you know there are some independents we’re not taking into account) that’s about 12%. 12% that probably share the values of the Christian voters who lean toward voting Republican, but for some reason aren’t voting Republican. Do you think that term “Judeo-Christianity” might have something, even a small part, to do with it?

Isn’t this just a call for political correctness? No. The idiocy of political correctness is saying you have to watch everything you say because it might hurt someone’s feelings. And it is for all levels of life, from the public and political to the personal. I am not saying you have to adjust your personal language or beliefs. This is merely a political reality. We as conservatives have certain values and policies we know will work and better the lives of everyone. Politics is as much about emotion and perception as it is about facts and plans, probably more so. Political Correctness has nothing to do with practical ends, which is why it has to be enforced by the left so viciously else reason would drive most people to that end anyway; what I am talking about is something very different than being PC, I’m talking about selling an idea with very real consequences. A term like “Judeo-Christian values” is loaded from the get go, it creates an us vs. them mentality, at a time when we need more of the people in the “them” category to vote for us. If we switched to using the term “spiritual value” or “God centered” more often, it would mean the exact same thing in terms of everything relevant to politics and ethics, and it wouldn’t emotionally alienate those we are trying to win over. You can still use “Judeo-Christian” if you really feel strongly about it, but do it knowing you’re hurting the chance to actually see your goals accomplished.

Is this stupid? Yeah. It’s silly and ridiculous to think we should have to be this nitpicky about our language and terms to win people to our side. But, the last time I checked we already had reason, logic, facts, truth, plans, and vision on our side. Didn’t notice that doing us any good. Oh, wait this is politics. Stupid thing like word choice do matter. Is it stupid? Yeah, but it’s something you have to do.

But should we end our discussion of this group of “nothing in particular” with just this term? Well that might work towards making in-roads with maybe 1% of those 12%, in-roads that would allow the rest of our arguments to make a difference, and that 1% we get to follow reason would be a third of the way we need to go, but it’s still not enough.

Let’s take a look at some of the actual beliefs of this group. Namely that 25% of them believe in reincarnation (If you assume that all the atheists and agnostics do not believe in reincarnation then it’s actually about 35% of the “nothing in particular” group…or about 4% of the general public.) Further while there is nothing in this year’s report, previous year’s reports showed that a belief in reincarnation was more popular with women, minorities, the young, Democrats, liberals, moderates, independents, and Christians who attend church less often (i.e., the people we need to win over).

So it is safe to assume that most of those in that 4% are not voting Republican.

But they should.

A belief in reincarnation by its very nature lends to long term thinking—the policies I put in place today won’t just affect my children and grandchildren, they’ll affect me over and over and over again. Thus anyone who believes in reincarnation has to believe in plans that aren’t as concerned with momentary problems, but with building long term systems that self-perpetuate and offer prosperity to the most people for the longest time with most chance of growth…that would be the capitalism and republicanism officered by real conservative belief. This is an argument I’ve made before, extensively in Republicans & Reincarnation, and one that we should all make to anyone who holds this article of faith in reincarnation. If you actually approach them on their own terms, and showed that the logical consequence of their beliefs is conservatism, we could get another 1% of that group…which means of the 49% left we only have to convince another 1% and given the abysmal failure of a second Obama term, that should be easy.

You don’t have to agree with people on faith. But you’re not going to convince them on politics if your stance is mine is the only religion worth following by using terms like “Judeo-Christian value.” Say “spiritual values” instead, it means the same thing, it still separates you from the secular liberal base you are trying to show a contrast with, and it may pick up a few votes. And if you’re arguing with someone who doesn’t agree with your religion or your politics, you’ll never convince them to give up a faith because of reason, it just doesn’t work (even if you do show contradictions and put them on the path to agreeing with you spiritually, it will initially only dig in their heels more on every other topic against you)…but if you approach them on their terms spiritually and show them how their beliefs do dictate a conservative point of view, then you at least get something.

*The only two exceptions to this are followers of the religion of peace (Sufis excluded) and atheists.